


the Actor's first (three) suicide attempts

by intricate_glass_box



Category: Video Blogging RPF, Who Killed Markiplier? (Web Series), markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Blood, Crying, Damien Celine and William are all mentioned but not present, Depression, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Stabbing, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, description/discussion of motives/reasons leading to suicide, hopelessness, implied effects of the manor entity's influence, mild gore warning, nausea mention, no happy ending, pre-canon for WKM, should be canonically consistent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:08:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23599621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intricate_glass_box/pseuds/intricate_glass_box
Summary: This fic contains description/discussion of the mental-emotional state leading up to suicide and then, as suggested on the tin, three suicide attempts. Please do NOT read this if you think it would trigger or upset you; I tried my best to tag accurately/thoroughly.Summary: The Actor can’t go on. Since finding out about the betrayal of William and Celine a few weeks prior, he hasn’t been coping well, only falling deeper into depression. Hopeless and alone in the middle of the night, he decides to kill himself, unaware that death won't come so easily in that manor.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	the Actor's first (three) suicide attempts

**Author's Note:**

> This is outside of my writing comfort zone. I wanted to challenge myself and also think more about the Actor as a character. (I think I succeeded, in those areas.)

The Actor was going to kill himself. Tonight. He hadn’t moved in hours — couldn’t tell you how long; didn’t know — but it was the middle of the night, now, and he was staring blankly at the ceiling. He had done nothing all day, but that was the new normal… since Celine and William left, he hadn’t taken calls, had refused all guests, and hadn’t left the manor. He hadn’t even showered in days. 

But, why would he? What reason did the Actor have to get out of bed? His career was in shambles; it’s not like he had an ongoing shoot to go to, and with no auditions scheduled there was nothing to even practice. No one had shown an _iota_ of interest in casting him in _months_. His beloved wife had left him without a second thought after his _best friend_ had just _helped himself_ to her, and who knows how long that had been going on — oh, yeah, he did have one reason to get out of this bed: because he couldn’t be sure they hadn’t fucked in it. It turned his stomach still — nausea accompanying a tangible pain in his heart. 

He hauled himself upright, catching a glimpse of his own haunted eyes in the mirror across the room. Thoughts like “why wasn’t I good enough for her?” and “after everything I did for him, he couldn’t even tell me he was fucking my wife?” echoed with no answers, only a reminder of the reality that neither of them respected him enough to even give him the dignity of a breakup before they ran off together, leaving him behind with nothing.

What reason did he have to be alive at all? He couldn’t take it anymore. Two of the most important people in his life, those he’d loved and trusted the most, were gone, leaving him no one to turn to. Damien, sure, was still around. He’d even tried to reach out to the Actor more than once. But if Celine and William could betray him the way they did, he really couldn’t trust anyone, not even Damien. And besides — he was Celine’s twin. Even if the Actor could look at his face without seeing hers and breaking down in tears again, which he could not, or without remembering all the time they’d spent together as kids with William and becoming enraged, which he could not, every time he would think about returning one of the many missed calls and really confiding in Damien, he would immediately imagine Damien meeting up with Celine and William afterward and repeating everything he might say. 

He couldn’t tell Damien how much he still cried; that everything in this damn manor reminded him of her, of his past successes that amplified his current failures, and of the sunny afternoons they’d all socialized together; not how hopeless he felt; how since he’d lost Celine and William, he felt he could never trust anything to stay in his life, and so didn’t know why he should bother trying to get better; not how lonely he was, and how much he missed them. 

Not when Damien might be on _their side_ ; they might all get together and agree the Actor was pathetic, might share a hearty laugh and agree how much happier they all are without him. The thoughts would come, and he would put down the phone. And there was no one else; he’d only ever kept a small circle of close friends, even at the height of his fame. So Celine had left him utterly alone.

With no support system and no opportunities on the horizon, he saw no way out. He just couldn’t take the despair anymore.

So he was going to kill himself. Now. He got up off the bed, walking quietly through the manor. This time of night, the staff would be asleep. He moved downstairs; he knew he had a large, fancy, and very deadly knife that he kept on display. It had been given as a gift, he recalled as he approached it, by a work contact… back in his prime. 

He extracted it from its case, regarding the ornate handle before hiding it in the folds of his robe (on the off chance he ran into anyone) and returning to his room. He tried not to, but couldn’t stop himself from, looking around one last time at all the pretty, expensive, and ultimately meaningless things he’d collected or been given. Things that reminded him of his life experiences, his work… decorative things Celine had picked out that made him feel like the knife was already in his heart; things William had given him from his travels that made him feel the knife was twisting. He was crying, again. It was all too much and he felt like he was choking on it all. He gripped the handle tighter, trying to keep quiet as he fled back to his bedroom.

The Actor wasn’t a religious man. He assumed that once he died, he’d be dead, it would be over, and that’s exactly what he wanted. What he needed. He closed the door, locked it, and looked at the weapon. Long enough to pierce his heart, he thought. Sharp enough, too. 

He decided to lay back on the bed, figured it would be easier than standing, and easier cleanup, too. He supposed they’d auction all the stuff and the damn house, tear the memories asunder and make it all someone else’s problem. 

His hands shook as he laid down, so he wrapped them around the handle blade, lining it up with his chest. It couldn’t possibly hurt more than the anguish he felt every day now. But he hesitated there, looking down at the deadly weapon lined up with his heart, beating hard inside his chest as he cried. Then he thought once more about William evidently taking the first moment to scoop Celine up, sweep her off her feet and out of Actor’s arms, and after _everything_ Actor had _done for him_. And Celine, his sweet Celine, falling out of love with him and running off with William without giving him a second thought or so much as _telling him so._ And the Actor plunged the knife into his heart. 

Immediately, the pain was white-hot, his whole body screaming that something was grievously, grievously wrong — but that’s what he wanted, that’s what he so desperately wanted, and he yanked the knife back out, a dizzying amount of blood following it, soaking the bed linens and his robe as all his senses spiraled out of his control. Despite the fact that adrenaline had flooded his system, his body was in its panicked death throes, his heart kicking out of rhythm in his chest, he felt a relief — finally, he wouldn’t feel so _bad_. Finally there was something to look _forward_ to. His vision was already spotted with black, and whether from the sheer physical pain and trauma or the blood loss, the Actor didn’t care. 

He died. 

He woke up somewhere dark. He couldn’t feel his body; he wasn’t in pain, but he felt… alive? He was flooded with terror. Was he wrong? There was an afterlife after all? Was he about to answer to god? _Surely,_ god would take mercy on him, after all he’d been through — pushed to suicide by the _cruelty_ of those closest to him..? 

He tried walking around the space, but soon after that, he woke up again. 

In _agony._ The physical pain was worse than anything he’d ever experienced. Apparently the first wound had not been enough to kill him. But the _pain,_ the shock, he couldn’t believe the body could endure _this._ He didn’t know how he was conscious. There was so, so much blood. He was scared now. He just wanted to die. He wanted to be free of the misery, not this, _not this._ He realized he still had the knife. Maybe he’d missed. Could he even move? Surprisingly, his arm responded, grasping the now-blood-soaked weapon. He aimed again, messily, begging the god he didn’t believe in for it to be over, and stabbing once more. More blood, pouring out of him; with a hysterical curiosity he noted that the second stab wound somehow didn’t make it _worse._ There must be a maximum to the pain a body can feel, and he had reached it with two stab wounds to a broken heart.

He died. 

He woke up in that same dark place. He screamed, pounded on the floor — the ground? was he inside, or outside? Why wasn’t he _dead? Why did he still exist?_ He sobbed into the floor-ground, terrified to wake up again, terrified that this was his hell; he hadn’t escaped any of his old thoughts, only now he was tormented too by the idea that he may have doomed himself, may have made the biggest possible mistake. 

If the Actor were to guess, he was there longer that time. Then, he woke up again, thrown back from one hell to another, immediately overwhelmed by the unfathomable pain. “Please,” he begged voicelessly, grabbing the knife again. “Just let me die. Just let me die. I can’t do this. I can’t.” The heart wasn’t working; he didn’t know why. He didn’t know _anything,_ nothing except agony. He sliced open his stomach, seeing blood and guts then nothing. 

He died. 

He woke up, screaming and crying into the darkness, clawing at the ground-floor. “WHY WON’T YOU LET ME DIE? WHY CAN’T I DIE? I SHOULD BE _DEAD,_ I JUST WANT TO BE _DEAD,_ JUST _KILL ME_ , JUST _LET ME DIE_ , I _CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE_ ,” he screamed, at nothing, his voice breaking. He collapsed back onto his knees, sobbing. “I’m so tired; it hurts so much. I just want to die. I just want it to be over. I just want it to be over.” He stayed there for a long time, until much longer than it had been before, a fact he eventually realized. Maybe this was really it. Maybe he was really, really dead, and this was the afterlife. 

He looked down at his body for the first time. It showed no wounds, but didn’t look fully corporeal. He could touch himself and feel it, but it had no warmth, and he looked like he might through colored glass, the edges a little blurry and his own colors off. 

If this was the afterlife, maybe he had options. Maybe he could cease to exist somehow. So he got up, and he walked. He walked for a long time, finding nothing. 

Then he woke up. The excruciating pain returned, but he noticed his wounds were already closed. Angry, painful, certainly not healed, but impossibly… closed. He was not going to die tonight. It was a horrible, horrible curse that should’ve been a miracle. 

He had no one to turn to. No path forward. Nothing to live for. And, apparently, no way out. He was in too much pain to move, certainly too much to do anything about the seemingly-gallons of blood he was laying in. So much blood, all his, and yet he was somehow still alive. Still awake. His whole world was pain and nausea and misery, so much he couldn’t think, and he sobbed, loudly and brokenly, unable to stop himself even though each one sent a fresh wave of pain through his broken body, caterwauling into the early morning hours for no one to hear.

**Author's Note:**

> This, in the form of questions for some reason, was the driving idea for this fic: How do you think the Actor felt, waking up after his first suicide attempt? Pushed to a place where he wanted to kill himself, then finding he’d failed? The emotional pain that had been enough to force his hand in the first place now coupled with the physical pain of a fatal wound… do you think he would try again, delirious with it and assuming he’d just not caused enough damage? How many times would he try in a row to end it, flipping in and out of the upside down, before giving up, resigning himself to the fact that he has no way out, not even death? How much pain is he in by then, the combination physical and emotional of his broken body and hopeless life? And how long is he alone with it, nothing but the insidious influence of the entity aware of his torment?


End file.
